Douglas Wilson’s Theology Predicted Today’s Politics
What happens in politics is downstream of what happens in the church
I’ve got a lot more teaching to do about white Christian nationalism and its standard bearers like Douglas Wilson. Is today the day you decide to support me in my labor of truth-telling?
CNN recently did an interview of fundamentalist pastor and writer, Douglas Wilson. It caused a stir of controversy online.
I have known about Douglas Wilson for more than a decade.
He has been platformed on major Reformed and evangelical platforms, selling books and speaking at conferences while promoting an ideology that fuses rigid patriarchy, Christian nationalism, and authoritarian politics.
Wilson wants the nation to be run as a Christian theocracy.
If we had paid attention to Wilson and the spread of his ideology, we could have foreseen the Trump regime coming.
What happens in politics is downstream of what happens in the church.
The CNN Profile
At nearly seven minutes long, the video and journalist Pamela Brown did an admirable job of capturing some of Wilson’s extremist views on religion and politics.
The video landed as a new church in Wilson’s Christian Reformed Evangelical Church network (CREC) opened in Washington, D.C. This ultra-fundamentalist network of churches has ties to powerful political officials such as Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
Wilson’s view on a Christian theocracy includes a strictly patriarchal view of society and the household.
Wilson calls wives and mothers the “Chief Executive of the home.”
This speaks to one of the more inflammatory statements in the interview, a section on so-called household voting.
In an interview with two pastors, Brown said, “There are some who would go so far as to say they want the 19th Amendment repealed.”
Jared Longshore, Executive Pastor at Wilson’s Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, immediately jumped in.
“I would support that.”
A Return to a Plantation Society
The best way to understand what Douglas Wilson and his followers envision for the nation is to understand plantation society.
Under U.S. race-based chattel slavery, the plantation operated as a strict hierarchy ordered by clear rules that kept everyone in their place.
The plantation owner functioned as the unchallenged patriarch of his small fiefdom. He had the final say on all matters—economic, political, social, and spiritual.
A benevolent plantation master, of course, would consult with his wife and a good leader would develop consensus.
But the plantation patriarch was always and forever the “head” of the entire household.
His power extended to the children he had by his white wife. It then trickled down to include the people he enslaved (as well as those borne of his sexual assaults).
Unlike his white children, though, these enslaved people could never truly grow up. They were perpetual children dependent on the wisdom, benevolence, and discipline of the plantation owner.
Women had strict roles as wives and mothers.
Laborers had unyielding, divine mandates to obey their masters.
The plantation owner was also the spiritual head of the household. He determined the proper interpretation of Scripture and judged its right application.
A good Christian plantation owner would govern his domain as a mini-theocracy.
While Wilson would strenuously object that he ever approved of race-based chattel slavery or that he wants it back, the rigid plantation hierarchy might appeal to him.
Wilson is not singular. He is merely representative.
What we’re seeing coming from the White House under the Trump regime echoes the plantation ideology.
They want to strip women of bodily autonomy. They have recently challenged marriage equality. They are under orders to gerrymander districts to guarantee Republican wins. They have demonized and brutalized immigrants from certain countries. Now they are attempting to take over cities with large Black populations in the name of law and order.
This will result in a very small group of wealthy people—mostly white, mostly male, mostly Christian nationalist—imposing minority rule on the majority who disagree with their leadership and policies.
In the end, Wilson, this political regime, and its supporters want the United States to look a lot like the antebellum South.
Personal Effects…
I find myself somewhat ambivalent that CNN recently did a lengthy (for them) segment on Douglas Wilson.
On one hand, I’m glad that profiles like this alert people to Wilson’s toxic ideology.
On the other hand, I’m frustrated more people didn’t pay attention sooner.
Wilson and his followers have long targeted me and the nonprofit I led, The Witness, a Black Christian Collective.
Most recently, he chimed in on the Grove City College controversy in which I was involved.
You can read more here:
Wilson wrote:
They should make a point of selecting high profile conservative voices for visiting lectures. Just as the presence of Jemar Tisby sent an unwanted message, so also would an invitation to Voddie Baucham, for example, send a desired message. Meg Basham would be great also, or any other conservative whose last name begins with B and ends with M.
The Way of Jesus
I share my story because I know where this ideology leads.
What we see in Douglas Wilson’s theology today will become someone’s policy tomorrow.
If a church teaches hierarchy, exclusion, and authoritarian control, it will eventually shape a politics that enforces those same values.
And once that theology is embedded in law, it affects everyone — not just the people in the pews.
That’s why it matters who and what we platform in our churches. That’s why it matters that we confront this ideology before it leaves the sanctuary and enters the statehouse.
If we want a nation that values pluralism, dignity, and justice, the work doesn’t start at the ballot box — it starts in the pulpit.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us:
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Knock at Midnight”, 1967
What did you think of the CNN profile on Douglas Wilson? Had you head of him before? Share in the comments.
The only way this information becomes common knowledge is when you spread the word. Would you share this article on social media or with some friends?
This article is part of my year-long campaign— “Conscience of the State: A Faithful Response to the Christian Nationalism War on History.”
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I am grateful that DW is finally getting the widespread negative attention he deserves. I think it's easy to dismiss someone like DW if you haven't heard of him. I heard of him vaguely while I went to a conservative church in the Bay Area of CA, but I didn't think too much of him. What I didn't realize was that his teachings, books, and materials are really widespread throughout the evangelical church. The things I was taught as a young wife and mother 18 years ago were directly from DW, via older woman at my church. They were so incredibly damaging to my relationship with my children and with my husband. Many years of being told (by other *women* NOT by my husband) to submit, stay quiet, stay obedient does not reverse easily. That CNN interview is just the tip of an incredibly ugly and damaging iceberg.
I live in Moscow and what DW has done to this town is anti-Christian. I can attest that the booing indeed happens all the time. There are F*** Christ Church stickers around town. There is a list of CC businesses to boycott. He is disliked because of his and his followers' arrogance and unkindness toward nonbelievers, not because of Christ.
As I read your post, for which I am profoundly grateful, I could not help of Jesus warning in Matthew 7:15-20
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. (King James Version)